The other day, several chickens were huddled in a corner of their pen. I don’t remember what the occasion was, whether it was raining, or if we were mowing, or what. Regardless, there were about three or four chickens packed into the corner between their house and the fence.
Dinner time was coming up, so I headed up to the house to start making dinner, and as I walked past the chickens’ area, I noticed three pullets pecking at something in the corner. It looked like there was some blood, so I rushed in to see what was going on.
The arrangement was like this: One araucana was laying down in the corner, apparently thinking that it was dead. A delaware was half-lying on top of it, with one of its feet caught in the fence, so its leg was stretched way out behind it. Three other pullets were busily attempting to help free the delaware from the fence. Their chosen method: amputation.
My investigation had stirred things up, so the pecking had stopped. I freed the delaware, and tried to pick her up, but she started pecking at me, so I put her down. I picked up the araucana and told her that she was still alive. She was pleased and ran off to join the flock.
The bloodied delaware had also tried to rejoin the flock, but one of the other pullets was chasing her around, trying to peck at her wound. So I had to be a chicken rescue squad to rescue the chicken from another chicken rescue squad.
Now the damaged delaware is isolated so she’ll have a chance to recover. She is quite dismayed at being separated from the rest of the chickens, and every evening at dusk she gets antsy, wanting to go get into the house with the rest of the pullets. And she’ll get her wish … in a week or so.
We can now add spring chickens to our list of the signs of spring. We have 70 chicks under a heat lamp now. That’s up from 25 last year. There’s one breed that’s the same, and a couple that are different.
Some things that I’ve noticed this year:
Seventy chicks in a box are noisier than twenty-five chicks in a box. The ride home from the post office was … chirpier.
Seventy chicks are a lot crazier, when they’re out of the box. It’s kind of like kids… when there’s one or two, they’re usually pretty calm. But the more kids you put in the same room, the louder and crazier they get. The chicks moved around a lot more. They seemed to have fun running up the hills that lead to their water.
It’s a bit amusing to watch seventy chicks all stand up straight and turn their heads at the exact same instant when your toddler drops a loud something in the other corner of the room.
This morning, it was peaceful and calm watching the chicks all cuddled up with each other, sleeping. I’m glad their party wound down eventually last night, and they got some rest.
I first heard of Prop 2 from the local AM radio station this morning. (When I say “local”, I mean the one (only one?) in the county we live in.) It was during an ag-update, of which there are many on this station. It said that livestock producers were concerned about the passage of the proposition. Producers in the midwest see it as an opportunity — California’s production will obviously decrease because of proposition 2. Oh, sad, sad, day.
I took it upon myself to research this perilous new law. I was curious about what types of terrible regulations had been passed by those crazies on the west coast.
Mere seconds after typing “prop 2″ into a search box, I found the Yes on Prop 2 page. Obligingly, they have the text of the proposed (now passed) law in a PDF. The summary reads thusly:
“The purpose of this Act is to prohibit the cruel confinement of farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.”
Hm. That doesn’t sound that catastrophic, or even unreasonable. Well, maybe there’s some scary stuff hiding behind such a simple summary…
“25990. Prohibitions.– … a person shall not tether or confine any covered animal, on a farm, for all or the majority of any day, in a manner that prevents such animal from:
(a) Lying down, standing up, and fully extending his or her limbs; and
(b) Turning around freely.”
Well, that sounds awfully similar to the summary. And that’s it, other than some definitions and exceptions.
In contrast to the tone of the local radio station’s report, our farm would not be hampered by a law like this. The chickens we have now, even when they’re cooped up for the night, have enough freedom of motion that we wouldn’t need to change if Indiana passed the same law. As we grow, our intent is to give our animals as much freedom as we can (while still keeping them healthy and safe from predators) and to raise what our land can support; in short, we plan to grow sustainably.
I think it is terrible that this type of law is required. But, I think it is hopeful that things seem to be changing in a more positive direction.
The dog discovered the chicks this weekend. No, she didn’t eat any (so far), but one of her new favorite places to hang out is just outside the door to their room. Every once in a while, she whines a little.
So, on Sunday, Mrs. B and I were sitting in the living room while the baby slept. We both heard, but didn’t really notice, the dog whining a little more than usual.
Later, we went to the kitchen for a snack, and noticed that the chicks were quite a bit louder than usual. Strange. Well, we both thought it’d be a good idea to check in on them — it had been a couple hours — so I snuck past the dog into the bonus room
From across the room, I could see that the chicks were all running around their little area, and there was lots of loud chirping. When I got closer, I could see that the loudest one was pinned under the water bottle… they had knocked it over, and one was stuck! I rescued it, it joined its friends in the opposite corner, and things settled down in chicken-land.
Silly chickens.
A couple weeks ago, I ordered some chickens. This weekend, we set up the chick area.
This morning, the post office called at 6AM to say that the chickens were there. I went and got them, and they’re running around their little pen.
We’ve got 5 araucanas, 10 silver-laced wyandottes, and 10 barred plymouth rocks. We’re hoping to get about 10-15 layers, and the rest will be for meat.
Mrs. B and I are reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
“He’s got all the latest toys … Billy’s in debt up to his eyballs.” George believes he’s managed to survive on the farm by steering clear of debt, nursing along his antique combine and tractor, and avoiding the trap of expansion.
…
“I’m getting 220 bushels an acre on that seed,” [Billy] boasted. “How’s that compare, George?”
George owned he was getting something just south of two hundred, but he was too polite to say what he knew, which was that he was almost certainly clearing more money per acre growing less corn more cheaply.
Yesterday, Mrs. B and I were visited by the farmer (Mr. Y) who’s going to farm our 28 acres. Mr. Y farmed it for the folks we bought the farm from. And it turns out that the land used to be owned by his great-grandfather, so he’s been involved in farming it since he was 6 years old.
Mr. Y told us much the same thing that George told Michael Pollan in the chapter quoted above — the new toys and new seeds really don’t seem to be worth it.
Reading about the recent history of agricultural economics makes me wonder what our farm’s economics will look like. Neither of us really expects farming to do anything more than be a hobby that pays us back a little bit, in addition to (hopefully) making the world a slightly better place. (“Leave it better than you found it.”) But it’d be nice if we could make a living from farming. Will we be able to, growing for market? I guess we’ll see.
Mrs. B’s parents are here for the holiday, and Mrs. B’s dad likes to help us with projects, and he’s an electrician, and we have an old farmhouse, so we had some obvious projects lined up. The first one on the list was trying to figure out and fix the irregularly-functioning wiring in our kitchen. One outlet (out of three), the light above the sink, and the fume hood sometimes just don’t work.
Mrs. B’s dad observed it not working. So he pulled the outlet out of the wall, and then it all started working. We plugged in a hair dryer and a waffle iron, trying to get something to happen, but no dice. He said, “Well, I’m glad I’m looking at this” or something to that effect, as if to say that there wasn’t a problem.
After lunch, we went up in the attic and looked at this one junction box on the far wall. Mrs. B’s dad opened it up and suggested that we split it up. He counted 8 wires going into the one junction box. I pointed out two more (knob and tube) coming out the bottom. OK.
First, we ran a new circuit up for some outlets that we could plug a light into. Then, Mrs. B’s dad pulled apart one of the wire nuts, and almost all the lights in the house blinked out. One by one, he pulled them apart and split the one circuit into three — our new one, another new one, and the existing one. While the power was out, I went around the house and checked out what was off: all the interior light fixtures downstairs (except in the bonus room), the microwave in the kitchen (I think), and all the light fixtures upstairs. Notably functioning were most of the wall outlets (upstairs and down) and the porch light.
Looking in the electrical box later, I saw that one breaker was labelled “BACK ROOM” and one labelled “FRONT ROOM”. I assume “BACK ROOM” applied to the bonus room (as expected), and “FRONT ROOM” must have been shorthand for “that which is not the BACK ROOM”.
Thursday, we tilled the garden to mix in the mushroom compost that we spread last weekend.
Today, with the help of my parents, we got the garlic in the ground. We planted 5 lb french red shallots, 10 lb music, 5 lb CA late, and 2 lb German. As you can see, we didn’t quite use up all of the garden, so the buyers should have plenty of space.
